Aggie ReStore is about more than just bargains
In the new Aggie ReStore, cast-off jeans and dresses intermingle with DIY crafts made out of items diverted from the landfill — worlds apart from the grunge and grime that the word “trash” usually conjures up.
Each item was donated to the store, which opened last month in the Memorial Union at UC Davis.
It’s all part of a concept that began a year ago in one of UCD design professor Ann Savageau’s classes. Savageau often salvaged “post-consumer” material for use in her sustainable design class, but the amount of consumer waste far outstripped her classes’ demand for material to “repurpose,” or create into “new, attractive, usable products,” she said.
“I soon realized that the amount of materials for this kind of endeavor was virtually limitless, and that the potential for creative reuse had not been exploited,” Savageau said.
Her idea was for a “resale store” that would sell repurposed objects made by students. Savageau’s idea inspired her class. One year later, the student-run Aggie ReStore was established as an ASUCD project, with help from Savageau, who calls herself an “informal mentor,” and the UCD design department.
An interior architecture student blocked out the blueprint of the store, a graphic design major laid out the fliers and a design undergrad arranged the merchandise to get maximum visual appeal. Donated objects also were accumulated and double-checked to see if they met regulations.
The result is a visually arresting store, with the edge of the register counter sprouting into a tree made out of repurposed wood, and a lampshade made out of colorful UCD design department lecture slides, along with reclaimed binders, notebooks and staplers.
“We kind of thought about what students wanted the most,” said co-director Carol Shu, a UCD design graduate student, about planning the store’s inventory. “Clothes were big, and school supplies.”
Joyce Gutstein, director of environmental outreach at the UCD John Muir Institute of the Environment, said the shop is geared toward students, particularly, and “to engage students, not only in buying things there, but in the concept around the store.”
“What it’s done that’s different (from other sustainability projects) is link ideas of sustainability with the everyday needs of students,” Gutstein said.
All items in the store are donated by UCD departments, faculty members or other students, either during set-aside collection days on the Quad or through donation appointments.
Many of the items were donated by design and other arts students, allowing for the shelf of art books, stacks of fashion magazine “W,” and a few bins of design department lecture slides to go along with the fantastical lampshade.
Buttons and wood were donated by a faculty member who discovered them while cleaning out her grandfather’s house, going along with the more practical and utilitarian items in the store.
Co-director Loni Coelho, a fourth-year managerial economics student at UCD, added that the store’s concept is “really cool because, essentially, students and faculty determine what sort of inventory we have, which is very unique.”
Since the cost of production is taken out of the equation, the Aggie ReStore is also an economical alternative. The most expensive product in the store is a $12 ladies’ evening dress, according to Shu, though most of the objects, such as the many school supplies, sell for nickels and quarters.
All profits not used in operating the store go to ASUCD.
But the store’s greater, albeit less glamorous goal of reducing landfill waste takes precedence.
“(The Aggie ReStore) will encourage campus sustainability by demonstrating that there is no such thing as ‘waste,’ and that virtually everything can be reused,” Savageau said.
Project manager Margot Bennett, a UCD textile graduate student, said, “We hope that the store will bring people together around issues of consumption and waste.
“The conversations that have been generated by this kind of store make you realize how badly current ways of doing things needs rethinking,” she added.
Savageau and the store managers hope that the Aggie ReStore expands to other campuses, as well as takes root in Davis through a full-scale “ReCenter,” educating students about the potential of post-consumer waste and how to effectively repurpose objects themselves.
“We have a lot of people involved who don’t want to be just a retail outlet on campus, but also a sort of teaching role on campus, ultimately bringing awareness to consume less stuff,” Coelho said.
There’s a larger concept, Gutstein added, “of which the Aggie ReStore is the storefront, if you will. It’s not just a store, it’s an idea.”
But for now, the store is a relatively unique response to the problem of environmental sustainability.
UCD sustainability planner Camille Kirk noted that it “captivates our imaginations to see trash as a desirable resource.”
Those interested in donating material to the Aggie ReStore are asked to not drop off material directly at the store, but instead attend either a monthly donation event on the Quad or set up an appointment at the store.
More information on the store and how to donate may be found online at aggierestore.ucdavis.edu, or by emailing the store at aggierestore@asucd.ucdavis.edu.
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=132399
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Posted by Anna Sturla
on Feb 1 2012.
Last Login: Fri 18 May 2012 03:26:26 PM PDT
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